diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index be6984b4fd9..afd8ea617c4 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -195,6 +195,9 @@ Core and builtins
 Extension modules
 -----------------
 
+- socket.sslerror is now a subclass of socket.error .  Also added
+  socket.error to the socket module's C API.
+
 - Bug #920575: A problem that _locale module segfaults on
   nl_langinfo(ERA) caused by GNU libc's illegal NULL return is fixed.
 
diff --git a/Modules/_ssl.c b/Modules/_ssl.c
index 5fcf84ca2e9..bee10400cd5 100644
--- a/Modules/_ssl.c
+++ b/Modules/_ssl.c
@@ -609,7 +609,9 @@ init_ssl(void)
 	SSLeay_add_ssl_algorithms();
 
 	/* Add symbols to module dict */
-	PySSLErrorObject = PyErr_NewException("socket.sslerror", NULL, NULL);
+	PySSLErrorObject = PyErr_NewException("socket.sslerror",
+                                               PySocketModule.error,
+                                               NULL);
 	if (PySSLErrorObject == NULL)
 		return;
 	PyDict_SetItemString(d, "sslerror", PySSLErrorObject);
diff --git a/Modules/socketmodule.c b/Modules/socketmodule.c
index 818d169da5b..7beb1cfa869 100644
--- a/Modules/socketmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/socketmodule.c
@@ -3559,6 +3559,7 @@ static
 PySocketModule_APIObject PySocketModuleAPI =
 {
 	&sock_type,
+        NULL
 };
 
 
@@ -3596,6 +3597,7 @@ init_socket(void)
 	socket_error = PyErr_NewException("socket.error", NULL, NULL);
 	if (socket_error == NULL)
 		return;
+        PySocketModuleAPI.error = socket_error;
 	Py_INCREF(socket_error);
 	PyModule_AddObject(m, "error", socket_error);
 	socket_herror = PyErr_NewException("socket.herror",
diff --git a/Modules/socketmodule.h b/Modules/socketmodule.h
index e81b5b40e72..601c2820a59 100644
--- a/Modules/socketmodule.h
+++ b/Modules/socketmodule.h
@@ -160,6 +160,7 @@ typedef struct {
 /* C API for usage by other Python modules */
 typedef struct {
 	PyTypeObject *Sock_Type;
+        PyObject *error;
 } PySocketModule_APIObject;
 
 /* XXX The net effect of the following appears to be to define a function